Oct 24
Rosa Parks, the woman who whose refusal to go to the back of the bus helped advance the equal rights movement, died today.
On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Parks refused to obey a public bus driver’s orders to move to the back of the bus to make extra seats for whites. Rosa was tired of being treated as a second-class citizen and held her ground. She was arrested, tried, and convicted for disorderly conduct as well as for violating a local ordinance.
The very next night, 50 leaders of the African American community, headed by relatively unknown minister Martin Luther King, Jr. gathered to discuss the proper actions to be taken after Mrs. Parks’ arrest. What ensued next was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She was 92. The entire black community boycotted public buses for 381 days. Dozens of public buses stood idle for months until the law legalizing segregation in public buses was lifted. This event helped spark many other protests against segregation. Through her role in initiating this boycott, Rosa Parks helped make other Americans aware of the civil rights struggle.
In 1956 Parks’s case ultimately resulted in United States Supreme Court’s ruling that segregated bus service was unconstitutional.
She was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999
She will, or should be, remembered as a hero by people of all hues.
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Aug 06
60 years ago today the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Let us pray that that bomb and the one dropped on Nagasaki are the last to ever be used.
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Jun 29
Paul Winchel, ventriloquist and voice of Tigger died Sunday. What surprised me is that he was also an inventor who held 30 patents including one for an artificial heart (from 1967).
At age six he contracted polio. He later credited weightlifting with helping him overcome a leg disability from the effects of polio. He also overcame speech impediments as he learned to throw his own voice. He donated his artificial heart to the University of Utah for research. Dr. Robert Jarvik and other researchers at the university went on to build an artificial heart, dubbed the Jarvik-7, which was implanted into patients after 1982. Among Winchell’s other patents: a disposable razor, a flameless cigarette lighter and an invisible garter belt.
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Jun 04
On this day in 1989 the army of the People’s Republic of China opened fire on the crowds in Tiananmen Square. Thousands of pro-democracy protesters were killed.
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May 29
Sadly this Memorial Day there are more who have died in the service of their country to remember than there were last year. As a country how we deal with this lose can depend a lot on how we view the ongoing nature of the conflict in Iraq. Even within one family there can be different way to grieve as this storyfrom the Mercury News points out.
Over the past several months, John Layfield has staked out a corner on a busy Fremont intersection where he clutches a sign that expresses his anger at President Bush over the death of his son — Marine Lance Cpl. Travis Layfield, a 19-year-old gunned down in Iraq.
At the same time and just a few blocks away, his ex-wife, Diane Layfield, was working at Washington High School, raising money for Operation: MOM, a support group for parents of military children who lean on each other and send care packages to the troops.
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